…this is what I heard on the other end of the phone line last Wed. October 27th after the caller asked for me. Needless to say I pretty confused and wary, but continued with the conversation. I continued to speak with Cathy – a pleasant promotions company rep who after I told her that yes, indeed I was sitting down – proceeded to advise me that I was the “selected entrant” in a recently entered contest. An online contest to win a Chevrolet CRUZE. Which in case you have been living in a hole for the last week in a half during an HIGHLY promoted marketing campaign and don’t realize – is a CAR. I WON A CAR. I think what followed from my end was “Holy Sh*t!” a number of times, and although at that moment my mind was racing, it most certainly processed the info even if my responses contained some (typical) flowery lingo.

Rewinding a few weeks: I had been reading my twitter feed while sitting for almost 3 hours in a doctor’s office getting my blood sugar tested at regular intervals (after drinking a 75g of sugar McDonalds-like orange drink) for Gestational Diabetes. It was the LONG version (being a pre-diabetic I was considered high risk) and I had been enjoying a hyper sugar high tweeting how much I loved the iPad etc. as it was really helping the time go by. I caught a tweet from a blogger I follow, Sharon DeVellis. She was participating in the Chevrolet City Challenge and was sending out tweets about her team’s progress and advising her followers to follow & support the team by heading to the website. So I did (what the hell, right? – I was sitting waiting for HOURS to pass) and by supporting the team I was entered in a contest to win a car. Fast forward to “Holy sh*t!” and there you have it. They drew MY name. I was a person that actually won something. Wow. I was DYING to share, but GM wanted to first, so my next tweet was “Ok all I can say right now is OMG”.

The strange coincidence of it all is that GM was the major sponsor of the Blissdom Canada conference I was planning to attend the following 2 days. I was even heading to the opening party that night. It is a conference aimed at and for social media enthusiasts, of all things. I asked the lovely Cathy on one of our interactions that day if they realized the winner of the contest was attending the conference (they didn’t). There will be more to come on the conference in my next post, but in any case, not only were they the conference sponsor, but they were providing Chevy Cruze test drives throughout it, chauffeuring us to Blissdom Canada events after hours, and well – promoting the Cruze. MY car. The car I won!

After meeting and speaking with the lovely Adria, at the party (she is the GM Canada Media Relations rep), it was decided to announce my win during the president of GM’s opening keynote speech at the conference the following day. It was absolutely SURREAL until that moment, and after the token photo op with him and being handed the “key” to my new car, it all sunk in.

The President of GM, my belly and I after announcing my car win. Photo courtesy of http://caseymullins.me

What an AMAZING way to start the conference, and as Heather Greenwood-Davis (a travel writer/blogger) said to me upon meeting her it was the best “ROI of Twitter” she had ever heard of. I would have to agree. I feel so incredibly lucky and thank my lucky stars that:
a) I took my GTT test that day (and passed with flying colours!)
b)I am learning the rewards and benefits of social media
c) being a nerd rocks! #NerdUp!
I look forward to the process of building/ordering the car and of course pimping it out to my liking (gotta get all the techy gadgets of course!). Translated = no I don’t have it yet, but I’ll post as soon as I do!

And you know the next time I hear from my wonderful, loving and supportive husband about how I am “twitter-booking” too much, I have a pretty good response: “Hey Mr., I won a CAR!”